Some 10.94 million voters had already cast their ballots for the general election as of Friday, the most for any national election since early voting debuted in 2004, the internal affairs ministry announced Saturday.
The 10,944,845 votes represent a turnout of 10.49 percent of the nation's 104,344,170 eligible voters during the 10-day period from Aug. 19, the day after campaigning officially kicked off for Sunday's election, according to the tally by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.
But the number of early voters in single-seat constituencies is expected to surpass 12 million, since early voting continued through Saturday.
The flood of early voters apparently reflects high interest in the election and the public's increased familiarity with the system.
The latest figure is 1.6 times higher than the 6,724,889 tallied at about the same time period in the previous Lower House election in 2005, and has already passed the 2005 total of 8,962,847.
The previous record was around 10.8 million, recorded in the 2007 Upper House election.